LOS ANGELES – Former USC receiver Marqise Lee expects to be selected in the first round of the May 8 NFL draft. But if he isn’t, he has a potentially lucrative fallback option.

Lee, 22, and his adopted family secured an unusual $10 million insurance policy in August, before his draft stock dropped as he struggled during the Trojans’ seesaw 2013 season.

The policy covered $5 million of total disability insurance, now the industry standard for top collegiate prospects, which only applies in cases of career-ending injuries and therefore won’t affect Lee. But the policy also includes $5 million in loss-of-value insurance in case of a loss of draft value because of injury — not unprecedented, but not commonplace either.

The latter could very well apply to Lee, who battled through knee and shoulder injuries, missed three games and finished as the Trojans’ No. 4 offensive producer. His case provides a window into the incredibly complex world of amateur athletics in 2014.

Before the season, Lee was widely projected to go in the draft’s top 10. ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. ranked Lee third among all prospects last summer, and that was worth something to insurers, who attempt to use the economies of scale to profit from top prospects such as Lee by guaranteeing them the income of a baseline spot in the draft or something similar.

For example, the first-round picks in last year’s NFL draft received signing bonuses averaging $6.47 million, according to Register research. The policy Lee signed in August likely states that he will receive a check for the difference, up to $5 million, between his actual bonus and this year’s first-round average, if he drops in the draft and the drop is determined to have been caused by injury.

It probably won’t be that simple, though. The involved insurance companies surely would argue the injuries were not the sole cause of his drop, and they’d have a legitimate case to take to an arbiter.

But for many of the best, highest-profile collegiate athletes in this country, there’s too much money on the line for this just-in-case, saving-grace insurance policy not to be appealing.

“Loss-of-value insurance is the Holy Grail for college athletes,” said Jonathan Thomas, a longtime insurance underwriter at Lloyd’s of London. “It’s the broadest coverage you could expect or hope for as a prospective future professional athlete.”

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Lee knew little about the concept of insurance for college athletes until Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater secured a $10 million policy last July.

From then on, Lee said, his parents researched all sorts of policies in conjunction with USC’s compliance department, a month later settling on one offered by Ronnie Kaymore, a risk management specialist at KPM Sports.

“I didn’t really do much of anything,” Lee said. “All I did was just sign the paper and that was it. I mean, it’s cool. It’s just something I did to protect my body.”

How much did that protection cost? No one was willing to divulge the premium Lee paid, but various sources indicated a $10 million policy including loss-of-value provisions would cost about $100,000.

Per NCAA regulations, Lee was permitted to secure a loan based on his future earnings to pay for a significant portion of that. The other portion, covering the loss of value, had to be paid out of pocket by him or his family.

That cost, at least $25,000, is why some say loss-of-value insurance should be considered only in the most extreme cases, such as a surefire No. 1 pick returning to college for a superfluous season.

“Someone put it into his head that he was going to go in the top half of the first,” said Rich “Big Daddy” Salgado, the president of Coastal Advisors LLC and an insurance adviser for dozens of NFL players. “If he would’ve went to the NCAA, they wouldn’t have offered this policy.”

The NCAA doesn’t offer loss-of-value insurance. But for elite athletes who seek basic insurance covering them in case of injury, the NCAA has provided a fairly fuss-free policy for the last quarter-century.

Football players projected to go in the top three rounds, and basketball and baseball players slated for the first round, can apply for up to $5 million worth of ESDI for PTD — exceptional student-athlete disability insurance for permanent total disability.

Premium costs for the full $5 million generally run about $30,000, cheaper than non-NCAA alternatives, with the NCAA contracting with U.S. Bank to allow athletes to borrow that money off future expected earnings.

But, according to NCAA director of travel and insurance Juanita Sheely, fewer than a dozen athletes have collected during the program’s 24 years, despite 100 or more annual enrollees recently. To many, that’s a problem.

“Disability protection sounds tremendous, and there is some value to it, but the reality is, because of advancements in medical coverage and technology, a permanent disability is becoming rarer,” said Warren K. Zola, a sports law expert and professor at Boston College. “We’re primarily talking about full paralysis in order to collect under a permanent disability policy.”

He estimates only 8-10 players played last season with some form of loss-of-value insurance. Others say it’s probably even fewer. There’s a considerable amount of secrecy involved, and with that comes a fair amount of unease.

“Total disability is pretty straightforward,” says Kevin Sergent, a director of compliance at USC since 2008 who helps many of the school’s athletes decide whether to pursue coverage. “Loss-of-value can be really confusing.”

Still, Sergent has come around to the advantages of loss-of-value policies over the last year. He said he expects more athletes to seek out the insurance going forward.

“I recommend loss-of-value as an investment more than disability,” he said. “Because of the world we live in, it’s much more likely that loss-of-value is going to pay out.”

Three underwriters named ex-South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore as a player who could have benefited from the insurance. Entering his junior season in 2012, Lattimore was expected to be a highly paid first-round pick. But he tore multiple knee ligaments and fell to the fourth, where his signing bonus was $300,000.

Lerner and Kaymore said universities should be responsible for educating amateur athletes about the insurance.

USC is one of the schools at the forefront. No insurance expert can name a player who secured loss-of-value insurance before Matt Leinart did so in 2005, when he returned for his senior season after winning the Heisman Trophy. Yahoo! Sports reported this week that UCLA linebacker Myles Jack, the top freshman in the Pac-12 last season, has purchased loss-of-value insurance.

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Thomas has worked for Lloyd’s since before loss-of-value even existed, and he concedes to being at least mildly surprised at how the insurance’s visibility has spread in recent years. Because of the difficulty in qualifying for a policy, there are “a lot of inquiries about it, but comparatively few policies sold,” Thomas said.

Then there’s the matter of the cost.

“You tell me how many college athletes and their families can easily write a check for $100,000 to cover this policy,” said Zola, a self-described student-athlete advocate.

Said Salgado: “Loss of value, I don’t do it. And I have been in this business 20 years. Out of 100 players, maybe two to three will collect.

“What these guys are not understanding is that this is not a lottery ticket. When you’re laying out that kind of money, the money’s gotta come from somewhere — whether it’s the parents, the bank, wherever.”

Plus, no one is sure about how easily and how quickly athletes actually can get their money. Zola says he has heard “differing opinions” on how serious an injury must be to collect.

“It’s subject to interpretation,” Zola said. “And that’s why you’re going to have insurance carriers and lawyers litigating whether or not the injury was the direct cause of the drop. And I’m sure that would get messy.”

With its more clear-cut insurance offerings, the NCAA does not generally deal with messy cases. But Sheely said unscrupulous insurance agents present an ongoing problem.

“Quite honestly, most insurance agents are not there to do what’s best for the student-athlete,” Sheely said. “It’s a business. They’re looking toward their bottom line, and they want to sell product.”

Many argue the NCAA should be in the business of offering its own version of loss-of-value insurance, especially if its goal is to lessen the reach of the crooked. Sheely says the NCAA might eventually do so “if we ever get to the point when it becomes that popular.”

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At February’s combine in Indianapolis, Lee generally met expectations, running a 4.52-second 40-yard dash and performing near the top of the pack in position-specific drills. But he didn’t raise his stock so much as maintain it.

“I think if people study this year, you can look at it two ways,” an NFL scouting director said. “He had a bum (knee) all year. Every time he made a play, he came out. But I think a little bit of that was he was just trying to stay healthy and help his team. Until you know the extent of it, you’ve got to say he played through it and sort of gritted it out at maybe not 100 percent. I think you’ve got to give him credit for that.

“If you’ve got reservations about this year, all you’ve got to do is go back to 2011, 2012, and see some real highlight production against some good people.”

Indeed, no receiver available this year — not even Sammy Watkins, the consensus No. 1 pass catcher — can contest Lee’s 2012 statistics, which include 118 receptions and 1,721 yards.

The scouting director says he believes Lee still will be a first-round pick. Whether the insurance was worth it is less clear.

Lee, of course, would prefer to go high in the draft and make his money that way. But if not, he could be the best test case to date for loss-of-value, influencing whether future prospects like him get the insurance.

“Ultimately, that’ll have an effect on what we recommend when we meet with players and families,” Sergent said. “Having never dealt with somebody who’s actually collected on it to this point, I don’t know how easy it is to collect.”

Neither does Lee, or any other player, even Lattimore, who had a total disability policy but no loss-of-value. He ended up spending about $30,000 on insurance while costing himself close to $5 million.

It’s hard to fault Lattimore for that, just like it’s hard to fault Lee for taking the risk.

“It would be very easy to say with the benefit of hindsight who might have qualified for it in the past,” Thomas said. “But insurance with the benefit of hindsight is an extraordinarily profitable business — a business that nobody happens to be in.”